MOSCOW, October 24 (RIA Novosti) - Alexander Pichushkin, dubbed Russia's 'chessboard killer', was found guilty on Wednesday of 48 murders and three attempted murders.
The jury rejected the defense team's plea against 18 of the murder charges, and found him guilty on all counts, with no mitigating circumstances.
The 33-year-old former supermarket worker claims to have killed many more than the number he has been found guilty of. He earlier put the figure at 63 - one short of his target, the number of squares on a chessboard.
He reportedly sat expressionless as the judge announced the convictions.
Prosecutor Yury Syomin recommended to the court that the defendant serve a life sentence in a high-security prison. He said prosecutors were currently investigating an additional 11 murders Pichushkin claims to have committed.
"The investigation committee at the Moscow prosecution department is investigating the evidence given by Pichushkin in court," the prosecutor said.
Pichushkin, who is believed to have killed most of his victims between 2001 and 2006 in wooded areas of south Moscow's Bitsa Park, earlier told the court he had begun killing in 1992, long before his main spree.
Most of the self-professed killer's targets were elderly people walking alone in the park, but three were women and one was a child. Typically, he plied his victims with vodka before battering them to death. Pichushkin said he initially he dumped the bodies in nearby sewage works, but became frustrated that his murder spree was going unnoticed and began leaving the bodies out in the open.
He was arrested in Bitsa Park on June 16, 2006, 11 days after finishing off his final victim and leaving her body in a stream running through the park.
